Phillippe Bishop: Alpenfire Cider

For episode 165 of Exploring Washington State, we sat down with Phillippe Bishop. Phillippe is the co-owner of Alpinefire Cider, a local cider located in Port Townsend, Washington that enjoys a climate of mild summers and foggy falls, adding to the apple trees flavor.  

Phillippe tells us stories of how the cidery first began in 2003 where he was boots on the ground helping plant the first orchard, moving boulders out of the tractors way, and why he loves what he does so much. 

His parents are also co-owners, a high school sweetheart couple that fell in love with not only each other, but with cider. after trying  cider in Canada and wondering if it couldn’t be done better. 

From learning about the orchard that is just shy of 1,000 trees (and how it used to be a swampy forest), to which apples they use and why, Phillippe is a great guest and a great resource to learn more about cider making from! 

You can check out Alpenfire Ciders Website here: https://www.alpenfirecider.com where you can learn more about their heritage ciders, tasting room, or even volunteering!

 

Alpenfire Cider Phillippe Bishop Episode Transcript

Scott Cowan [00:00:00]:

You didn’t know there’d be math on a Monday morning, did you?

Philippe Bishop [00:00:02]:

I I had no idea. That’s that’s a terrible question.

Scott Cowan [00:00:23]:

Welcome to the Exploring Washington State podcast. Here’s your host, Scott Cowan. Welcome back to this episode of the Exploring Washington State podcast. My guest today is Philippe Bishop with Alpenfire Cider. Philippe, welcome to the show. I appreciate you getting here early on a Monday morning with coffee in hand. So why don’t you tell our audience a bit about your story first, then we’ll go into Alpenfire. So how’s that?

Philippe Bishop [00:00:51]:

Sure. Yeah. My name is Philippe. I am co owner of Alpenfire Cider. And, yeah, I don’t really know where to go from here. I,

Scott Cowan [00:01:06]:

like Okay. Well, that’s that’s a great intro. We’ll just start with that. So how long have you been with Alpenfire Cider?

Philippe Bishop [00:01:13]:

Let’s see. We we planted our started planting our trees, back in 02/2003, and I was there for walking in front of the tractor and tossing giant boulders, out of our glacial till soil at that point. So, Alright.

Scott Cowan [00:01:30]:

Well, I gotta interrupt you because you don’t look like you were would have been old enough in 02/2003 to be tossing giant boulders.

Philippe Bishop [00:01:39]:

How old were you?

Scott Cowan [00:01:40]:

How old were you back in in 02/2003? Oh. You didn’t know there’d be math on a Monday morning, did you?

Philippe Bishop [00:01:45]:

I I had no idea. That’s that’s a terrible question. 02/2003. I was probably 23, 20 two, something like that.

Scott Cowan [00:01:57]:

You you look much younger. Oh. You look much younger. Okay. Okay. So I guess you could throw giant boulders back then.

Philippe Bishop [00:02:03]:

Okay. Alright.

Scott Cowan [00:02:04]:

Teasing. I

Philippe Bishop [00:02:04]:

was in much better better shape than I don’t I know they’re gonna do it now. It’s

Scott Cowan [00:02:09]:

So back in o three, you started planting trees. When did Alpenfire Cider was that when you guys open for business? Or when when did because you guys are one of the earlier cider makers in Washington state, and we’ll get to that. Yeah. We’ll get to that. But so when did you guys officially open?

Philippe Bishop [00:02:31]:

Roughly, it was kind of a multiyear process. Trees went in the ground first. We then started experimenting. We officially opened to the public in, like, 02/2007, ‘2 thousand ‘8, somewhere in there. Okay. It just takes years to get trees going. You know?

Scott Cowan [00:02:50]:

Sure.

Philippe Bishop [00:02:50]:

And we went that that route instead of kind of, just buying juice and, that route.

Scott Cowan [00:02:59]:

So So so your co owner, the other owners are?

Philippe Bishop [00:03:06]:

My parents, Bear and Nancy.

Scott Cowan [00:03:08]:

Okay. And they kinda have I mean, publicly, they kinda their their their introduction to cider is relatively interesting.

Philippe Bishop [00:03:18]:

Yeah. I mean, it was a a long time kind of a interest of theirs. High school sweethearts, actually, like, prom king and queen, all these kind of things. You wouldn’t know it by looking at them now or even back then, But, you know and, they would sneak off up into Canada when they were, you know, underage in The US and drink cider up there and, you know, fell in love with the the French stuff that they could find up there. But also, we’re like, wow. This stuff that coming in a big two liter plastic bottles is great also. It’s a great introductory and super sweet and fruity. And so it kind of got both sides of the cider world going, from the traditional French stuff and the more modern adjunct driven kind of ciders.

Philippe Bishop [00:04:21]:

And and then it was just kind of always in the back pocket of like, oh, well, we should you know, it’d be great to start a cider. That’d be fun. And, my dad was a wildland firefighter for many years. My mom owned a a marine canvas shop in town. And, oh, during all this thing, they you know, it was always that back in the brain. Like, oh, it’d be fun to do this. It’d be fun to do this. And, you know, it was roughly early two thousands.

Philippe Bishop [00:04:53]:

They were like, well, why don’t we do it? They had a small piece of land, five acres in Port Townsend, and they’re like, well, we could just nobody’s really doing this right now. There was, like, two or three catteries in Washington that they had known about. And Mhmm. They’re like, well, it it’ll be fun. It’ll be a small little, you know you know, small farm project. And

Scott Cowan [00:05:24]:

What could go wrong? You know?

Philippe Bishop [00:05:26]:

Exactly. Farming. And yeah. Exactly. So she just kind of took some cider making classes, went and toured, Spain, France, and England, and kinda just jumped in with both both feet. And at the time, I was doing I just finished up I did about ten years of wildland firefighting as well, and I just kinda finished that. And I was doing architectural salvage, and I was like, they were kinda it was just this weird mesh of, like, things meshing together. I I don’t know.

Scott Cowan [00:06:14]:

So Yeah. When were you introduced to cider? Did your how how did your I’m gonna guess your parents introduce you. So how did they introduce you to cider?

Philippe Bishop [00:06:25]:

Well, we they actually moved to Port Townsend to build a boat, was the initial thing. And so we built a sailboat. I grew up on that, kind of through middle school and little bit of high school, and then that’s when we kind of got our chunk of land. And but during that time of on the boat, we’d go sailing up into Canada. And I was introduced to cider up there kind of in the same way where it was, like, super sweet and, oh, this tastes like peaches with apple juice kind of, and this tastes like, you know, strawberries with apple juice. And Mhmm. It comes in giant bottles. And, you know, I was, like, in fourth or fifth grade just, like, taking little slit little sips during dinner or something like that.

Philippe Bishop [00:07:19]:

And it’s just like, this is really interesting. Okay. And then as we started going, and I became kind of legal to drink in The US, I fell into more of the the kind of craft beer scene in Okay. Washington. Really enjoyed what was going on there. And so I was always kind of on the out outskirts of it and then started drinking, ciders imported specifically from, like, The UK. And that’s what really got me hooked, was this heavy, bittersweet quality of leather and tannins and farmhouse just funky. And it was just like, this is such a unique drink.

Philippe Bishop [00:08:10]:

And it there’s nothing like like it in The US. And as we started to release ciders, it was like, oh, this is where we’re getting the influence from is these kind of producers from The UK and, like, France where heavy tannin driven, not so much acid driven like you see currently in The US. But, yeah, I don’t know. That’s kind of where I came into it and, ended up working for a beer distributor for a couple years, helping them with their cider portfolio and doing warehouse stuff and sales calls and kind of learning that side of it. And then just kind of was like, well, we need a lot more help on the sales side. So I just went back to self distribution, and they’ve been doing that since about 02/1415, something like that. Every year is blending together.

Scott Cowan [00:09:18]:

It all blurs together. And then we had COVID in and, you know, we don’t know we don’t know where we are. Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:09:23]:

Yeah. It’s it’s somewhere in the twenty thirties. Right? Is that where we are?

Scott Cowan [00:09:31]:

Yeah. Exactly. It is Monday in twenty thirty. Yeah. Perfect. Where did my life go? Let’s alright. Let’s go back to when you decided you were gonna plant trees on this parcel. What type of apples did you plant initially, and has that changed through the years? Or did you get it right the first time?

Philippe Bishop [00:10:09]:

Well, it was a lot of a trial and error and tasting of, like, single four adults and going, oh, that’s a really unique flavor in this apple. And it’s nothing like you can get from the the apples that are so common in Washington. And it was just like one of those things where we’re balancing, what we could get readily in Washington versus what kind of nobody knew about in, like, classic cider apples.

Scott Cowan [00:10:47]:

Give me an example.

Philippe Bishop [00:10:49]:

For instance, like the Davenport. It’s an English bittersweet, cider apple. You do a single varietal of it. It’s really common to pick up, like, a melon flavor, like a honeydew. I think it’s a honeydew. And, like, you’ll get it with English tabbinets. You’ll get it on the East Coast, Midwest, West Coast. It’s just this amazing little thing that you pick up.

Philippe Bishop [00:11:25]:

And it it was like, oh, yeah. Well, we can’t get that in Red Delicious. So Davenport is like one of the ones that we were like, oh, yeah. We gotta plant this. So, we ended up planting Davenette, Filberry, Brown Snout, Yarlington Mill, Kingston Black, and

Scott Cowan [00:11:49]:

Would you say that three times fast?

Philippe Bishop [00:11:53]:

Lucy Day idea.

Scott Cowan [00:11:57]:

I couldn’t I couldn’t catch that. I would have to slow that way down. What what is let’s talk about that one since I can’t pronounce it. What’s that one?

Philippe Bishop [00:12:06]:

It’s an early season, bittersweet, and, yeah, it it I don’t we’ve never done, like, single varietal trials on it.

Scott Cowan [00:12:19]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:12:21]:

But it is a kind of a a key character in our our pirate spike, which is kind of our early season cider apple blend that we release every year. Extremely dry, yet still incredibly fruity and has this perceived sweetness in it that is really unique.

Scott Cowan [00:12:44]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:12:47]:

It’s an interesting apple because it gets really slimy as you press it, and it it’s not very kind of fun to work with. But it has the characteristics that we’re looking for in a, a good bitter sweet apple. I don’t know really where to go.

Scott Cowan [00:13:05]:

You’re not you’re not selling that one. I mean, it’s slimy to work with. You’re just not selling it, but that’s okay. It’s it’s all good.

Philippe Bishop [00:13:16]:

But the trees do do they do, they do well in our climate because they’re I mean, most of the the apples are in, like, Northern France or Southwestern England, which is roughly it’s a very similar climate to what we get in, like, Western Washington. So Mhmm. Very rain driven, and, like, a maritime climate. I mean, that’s what Okay. And us being That

Scott Cowan [00:13:44]:

was gonna be one of my questions is how how these trees adapted to to the seasonality in the weather up. Because Port Townsend you guys get some serious weather in there. I love Port Townsend. Port Townsend is a great place, but every time I go there, it seems like it’s supposed to be sunny today, isn’t it? It’s not sunny today. How come it’s not? It’s

Philippe Bishop [00:14:04]:

We’ll get ten minutes of it, and it’ll be Oh,

Scott Cowan [00:14:08]:

that’s why I missed it. I was like, okay. Ten minutes. On what day of July do you get that ten minutes of sun so I can get there next time, will you?

Philippe Bishop [00:14:16]:

Fifteenth. It’s always on my birthday for ten minutes.

Scott Cowan [00:14:18]:

It’s always on July 15? You get ten minutes of sun for your birthday. Perfect. I love it. Well, when when the decision was made to plant these trees, where did your I’m gonna guess your was your parents’ decision to plant these varieties at first. And they were taking and they were being trained. Where were they being trained at, for cider?

Philippe Bishop [00:14:44]:

We, they had taken some classes through the Washington State University extension lab up in Mount Vernon, back when Peter Mitchell, English cider maker, was coming over, like twice a year to The States to teach cider making classes. And, yeah, just kind of got wrapped up into it there and then did a lot of reading, like, Michael Phelps, holistic gardening, orcharding was a big influence. And, yeah, just kind of learning as we go and coming up with different ideas to to to adapt to our our situation. Okay. Like, deer are a big problem kinda everywhere, but us being a small orchard, we just we didn’t want to invest in, like, a ton of fencing. So we had this, I don’t know if it’s very common, but it’s it’s it is a deer fencing that came from, now what is it? I think it’s Wisconsin, and it’s like eight feet tall, and it blends in really well because it’s all black, but it just kind of disappears into the orchard. But it was all forested land before we started the orchard it was kind of a swampy forest of like alder and cedar and maybe a little bit of fur in there. And as we kind of pick the area to put the orchard of where the, you know, we’d have good sun exposure and a good wind protection and everything.

Philippe Bishop [00:16:38]:

All those trees that came down we happened to mill up on-site and that’s what we built our whole trellis system with and our fence is all wood that came off of the land. And, I think that’s a pretty unique aspect of nothing is really left.

Scott Cowan [00:16:57]:

Currently, how many acres of apples do you have have in the orchard?

Philippe Bishop [00:17:02]:

Just over an acre. It’s all tenuous foliate, just shy of a thousand trees. None of them are over seven feet tall. Okay. It’s on a four wire system. And, yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:17:20]:

K. I don’t know that much about Trellis work and all of that. What I do know and I’m I’ll tell you what I think I know, and you tell me if I’m correct, and feel free to tell me I’m wrong. But when you work with a tree on a trellis, they tend to produce fruit a little bit faster than what I would think of as an apple tree, which is a freestanding tree that you could put a swing on when it’s 40 years old. Am I am I correct that they can bear fruit they they bear fruit faster? Is that accurate?

Philippe Bishop [00:17:52]:

Yeah. I mean, there it was on the dwarf in the root stock. A lot of that energy, you know, it it it’s keeping that energy pretty low. And, supposedly, the the trees will have a shorter lifespan, but we’re not we’re not seeing that just yet.

Scott Cowan [00:18:07]:

Okay. That was my next question. Or my next my next belief is that the trellis trees don’t have the lifespan that a a traditional tree does, but you’re not seeing that.

Philippe Bishop [00:18:18]:

Yeah. I mean

Scott Cowan [00:18:19]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:18:21]:

They’ve been in the ground

Scott Cowan [00:18:26]:

for for two thousand Nineteen years.

Philippe Bishop [00:18:27]:

Yeah. Until three. Thanks. You’re all

Scott Cowan [00:18:30]:

I let you stumble early, but, you know, now I’ll help you out.

Philippe Bishop [00:18:35]:

And we were always told, like, you know, maybe twenty five years for these, Okay. Dwarfing trees. And just the only problem we’re having is the voles that are coming out of the forest are attacking the roots. And the trees are still producing like crazy. And we’re not seeing that drop yet that everybody or that we have heard would happen with that type of orchard. So

Scott Cowan [00:19:07]:

Okay. Yeah. Alright. So you have about an acre of trees in production. Mhmm. Does that supply all of your apple needs, or do you get apples from other orchards?

Philippe Bishop [00:19:21]:

We definitely get apples from other orchards. It supplies depending on the year, it can supply anywhere from 50 to 60% of our total production, which is still under 6,000 gallons a year. Okay. And we work with, Rainshine Orchards down in South End Of Willamette Valley, who provide us with our our red red flesh apple. Early early red flesh, hidden rose, mountain rose, all are this apple. So it’s kind of a multinamed

Scott Cowan [00:20:02]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:20:02]:

Thing. We also work with, heirloom orchards in Hood River and, lazy Jay orchards in neighboring us out in Port Angeles, kind of between Sequium and Port Angeles.

Scott Cowan [00:20:17]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:20:17]:

He’s been the one that we’ve worked with the longest. And, yeah, I know some of his land is being shifted more towards, Christmas trees right now as it’s such less work, which is a shame because he’s growing some great apples and be a big loss for the peninsula if we didn’t if we if they kind of all went away. And that’s pretty much it. I mean, we our production is pretty small, so we don’t go for, you know, unless something really neat comes up. We work with, a Northwest Mobile Juicing that based out of Montana, who just kind of goes around to a bunch of different orchards and presses unique fruit. And so we work with him and it’s like, well, do you have anything organic that was really cool this year or really high breaks or tasted unique?

Scott Cowan [00:21:23]:

And

Philippe Bishop [00:21:23]:

so we might bring some of that in kind of during the peak season. But our biggest thing is, like, well, we’re gonna press once a year. And once that once those apples are done, we aren’t bringing in anything out of cold storage. We aren’t gonna do all that because the we feel the quality isn’t there once it’s, you know, it’s kinda left the tree. And, yeah, that’s kind of we’re more harvest driven than anything else. So

Scott Cowan [00:21:54]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:21:57]:

When

Scott Cowan [00:21:59]:

pondering which direction we’re going. When you planted the trees, was the intention, to be organic from the beginning? Mhmm. Or and it was. Okay. What was the rationalization to go organic?

Philippe Bishop [00:22:16]:

Just to the the state of the Americans’ food system. I mean, everything is moving more towards, I don’t know, commodity and just not necessarily healthy for people. And we found that even through all of its flaws, the National Organic Program, the NOP, is on a well, has a good mission. Balancing its flaws, you know, with corporate

Scott Cowan [00:22:53]:

Every every organization has flaws.

Philippe Bishop [00:22:55]:

Yeah. Indeed. But it was mainly our ethos of, like, well, we don’t want to dump a whole bunch of chemicals on the ground to defoliate the the, you know, leafy vegetation beneath the trees. And if we do that, then it it it’s just a a bunch of different problems that can persist from there. And we’ve kind of gone the opposite direction where it’s like low intervention with these trees has made them stronger. Where we’ve seen orchards that were conventional, and then they’re like, oh, well, now we’re going to shift to organic. And all those years of being conventional has kind of weakened the tree. And, those trees, they don’t survive very well if they don’t have all those inputs of, you know, high nutrients in the soil.

Philippe Bishop [00:24:01]:

Yeah. Just all the things to now they need all that to protect it protect themselves instead of something like our process where it’s like we use fire as a as a pest prevention. Like, two or three times a year, we come out and, literally burn, under our trees, and that kind of keeps down the the leafy, weeds and stuff that can damage the tree. We also found that our soil is so wet that it actually steams underneath of our leaves. And we’ll see, like, all of these bugs and everything drop in from the underside of our leaves, and we’ll have birds flying in right behind the the tractor that is burning them. And it’s just a smorgasbord of of cooked bugs for them.

Scott Cowan [00:24:55]:

Cook bugs.

Philippe Bishop [00:24:58]:

And, so then they immediately clean up all that, like, right after us. And it’s more of a we’re working with the ecological system than trying to fight it. And yeah. I don’t know.

Scott Cowan [00:25:13]:

This is the first time I’ve ever asked this question.

Philippe Bishop [00:25:17]:

Uh-oh.

Scott Cowan [00:25:19]:

How are you using a tractor to burn everything? Walk me through explain this to me because I’m sitting here and I’ve got all these, you know, I I I there’s a guy in overalls throwing matches on the ground. There’s a guy with a flamethrower laughing and giggling. I don’t think I’m right on any of these. So what is the

Philippe Bishop [00:25:40]:

You got two of them right.

Scott Cowan [00:25:41]:

That’s what Oh, I got two of them right. Okay. What what did I get right?

Philippe Bishop [00:25:45]:

Overalls, yes.

Scott Cowan [00:25:46]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:25:47]:

Bear is usually in overalls, and it is a type of flamethrower that he’s using. It’s just a big torch that our trees I mean, given our history of fighting fire fire wildland fires, we had old fire shelters that were you can only use them for so many years. And so we cut them up and actually wrapped the the base of our tree in them. And Oh. We use a propane torch, in a a small, like, riding lawnmower trailer that Okay. Yeah. We’ll just pretty much be driving along, holding the torch on the ground and just kind of burning as we go and Okay. Just an idle through the orchard.

Philippe Bishop [00:26:38]:

It works for our scale. It’s one of those things that’s like it’s a brilliant idea. Works really well, but kind of

Scott Cowan [00:26:47]:

And within scaled to a hundred acres.

Philippe Bishop [00:26:49]:

Yeah. We couldn’t really scale it without some kind of massive investment in new technology kind of thing where, yeah. I don’t that’s kind of where we find Well,

Scott Cowan [00:27:03]:

but see, here’s the thing. This is everybody develops technology to the scale that they’re they’re operating at. Exactly. You don’t need you don’t need to have something, you know, too too big or too small. This is working. You guys have developed this. So let me I’m gonna repeat what you just said, what my brain heard. You have a guy named Bear wearing overalls, driving a tractor with open flame.

Philippe Bishop [00:27:31]:

Yes. That’s good. You got it. Good. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [00:27:33]:

Okay. Cool. You you’re like, why am I talking to this guy? That’s okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:27:45]:

Nailed it on the first try. Jeez.

Scott Cowan [00:27:49]:

Go think.

Philippe Bishop [00:27:51]:

Yeah. We usually do it, like, two to three times a year, and, it works great.

Scott Cowan [00:27:57]:

I mean Okay. Here we go. Yeah.

Philippe Bishop [00:28:01]:

We don’t

Scott Cowan [00:28:01]:

Let’s go. Yeah. K. Let’s go back in time to the first year when you guys started your first year of production with that, you know, making cider.

Philippe Bishop [00:28:12]:

Alright.

Scott Cowan [00:28:13]:

What was what was that what do you remember the first year to be like?

Philippe Bishop [00:28:19]:

Not much, honestly. I think at that time, jeez, I can’t even remember where I was at that time. Yeah. I remember lots of carboys and lots of, just kind of tasting things. And we had a an extra dry, which turned into our pirate’s plank, and a bittersweet blend, which turned into our our kind of late season, estate blend, which is our ember. And, yeah, I can’t remember a whole lot, honestly.

Scott Cowan [00:29:06]:

Alright. Well, you you mentioned early season and late season a couple of times. Yes. In your in your opinion, describe the differences between the early season cider and a late season cider.

Philippe Bishop [00:29:26]:

So freshness. So think, like, our late our ember. One of the descriptors I like to use in it is it’s more of a mind picture or a picture in your mind of walking through an orchard, say in December, like early December, when all the apples have fallen to the ground and it’s your your nose is permeated with that smell of overripe apple. Okay. And that’s kind of what that cider reminds me of is like a very late season, like overripe, well ripened apple with a big tannic backbone and just a touch of sweetness. Well, the our early season, which would be more of our powered splank, is gonna be it’s gonna be lighter on the palate, and, like, the acids are different. It’s gonna be a little higher acid. I wouldn’t say it’s high acid by any means, but it just slightly different, because most kind of early season apples like the Kingston Black are typically really well balanced.

Philippe Bishop [00:30:55]:

So they have good tannins, good sugars, and good acids, like higher acids, than, like, the late season, which is good tannins, good sugars, and lower acids. Okay. And, yeah, it it it’s a different experience.

Scott Cowan [00:31:16]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:31:18]:

It’s hard to to describe it that way.

Scott Cowan [00:31:22]:

Alright. But so your first your first year, basically, the pirate’s plank came out of the first year’s Yeah. Ex experiments, if you will. Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:31:34]:

Definitely.

Scott Cowan [00:31:36]:

How did you come up with the name pirate’s plank?

Philippe Bishop [00:31:39]:

It was a whiskey originally, we’re gonna be called the whiskey plank. And because it’d be in Port Townsend, wooden boat, like Mhmm. Mecca, the whiskey plank is kind of the last plank you put on a wooden vessel.

Scott Cowan [00:31:56]:

Wow. But the

Philippe Bishop [00:32:01]:

the TTB didn’t like that as a name on our labels. It Sand Whiskey, the tax rate bureau. Oh, okay. And the the the governing body for, kind of labels. And

Scott Cowan [00:32:18]:

Alright.

Philippe Bishop [00:32:19]:

There’s very strict things you can say on labels that, and that just didn’t get that

Scott Cowan [00:32:27]:

that didn’t get past the sensors, if you will.

Philippe Bishop [00:32:29]:

Yeah. Because it said whiskey, and it was like, well, there’s nothing to do with whiskey in this in this beverage. And you can’t say whiskey because the whiskey lobby might come after you, you know, all just silly little things. And, Gotcha. And so, yeah, we kinda stuck with a plank and just it was just kinda like, oh, it’s a pirate’s plank because it kind of you know, everybody and it had the tagline of, it’ll rob you of your misconceptions. Yeah. Because Okay. Everybody’s conception of or everybody’s idea of of cider, even today, is like, oh, well, it’s sweet.

Philippe Bishop [00:33:09]:

You know, it’s that full kind of drink thing that you it it’s just, like, it’s the side dish to a main dish kind of thing. It Right. And we’re like, no, that that isn’t what cider is historically in most in, you know, across the world. Here’s our parrot spike. It’s extremely it has great depth to it. It’s a really unique drink. It can I mean, anybody that likes a farmhouse Saison or something like that would really dig this cider? And, so, yeah, it just kind of came that with that tagline of, like, no, no, no, try this. You want something dry? Try this.

Philippe Bishop [00:33:59]:

This will just rob you of your misconceptions. It’s definitely come back to bite me a couple of times where, you know, at festivals, someone will walk up and go, oh, I want something dry. I’m like, okay. Just pour it. I’ve literally had somebody just it goes in their mouth and immediately came right back, hits my face. What? Pre COVID time. You know, it was it was a lot safer back then. Safer.

Philippe Bishop [00:34:26]:

And and, she was just like, oh, I’m so sorry. What what was that? That it just, like, hit my tongue so weird. And, I wasn’t expecting to be kind of that dry. Is that dry? And, yeah, I was just like, hey, try it. I pored another cider that wasn’t nearly as dry, and she was like, oh, that’s perfect. And I was like, yeah, it’s like a medium sweet, but sure. So, yeah. The kind of misconception of of dryness is is is something that we’re still struggling with in as an industry.

Philippe Bishop [00:35:08]:

But, yeah. So Well, let’s let’s

Scott Cowan [00:35:11]:

let’s pause there for a second. Because most of your portfolio is, quote unquote, air quotes air dry. Right?

Philippe Bishop [00:35:25]:

Most. Yeah. I mean Most.

Scott Cowan [00:35:28]:

Okay. It’s not it’s not super sweet, not you know? So how how did you go about educating the market that this beverage, this complex dry beverage, is not like some treetop apple juice that you’re accustomed to. You know? No offense to treetop apple juice. But, you you know, I mean, there’s It

Philippe Bishop [00:35:58]:

has its place.

Scott Cowan [00:35:59]:

It has its place. And so if if somebody is accustomed to a cider that is more like that and you give them Pirate’s Plank and they spit it in your face, well, that’s that’s not that’s that’s a tough sell. Right? How do you how do you but how do you how did you educate the palate of your customer?

Philippe Bishop [00:36:20]:

It’s taken years.

Scott Cowan [00:36:22]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:36:27]:

And yeah. Jeez. It’s lots of tastings and lots of talking about cider, I think.

Scott Cowan [00:36:33]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:36:37]:

Yeah. I mean, we we cider still hasn’t kind of we’re still right in the coattails of many different beverage industries and Mhmm. Which I don’t we don’t need to be. We’re we’re a very unique beverage that needs its own designation. But, yeah, it it just took lots of I hate to say it took lots of time acting like it’s over because I feel like every seven years, it’s pretty much starting over.

Scott Cowan [00:37:12]:

Really?

Philippe Bishop [00:37:13]:

That’s what it feels like. Like five to seven years. So it’s like, oh, because a lot of my my work is going in and talking to buyers specifically who I figure if I can give them the right information, they can disseminate that knowledge a lot easier than I can to all of their customers. And if I can get them excited about it, their customers will be excited about it. And every five to seven years, I’ve seen a big flip in the industry. And it’s like everybody that I worked on or had worked with is like, oh, yeah, I’m moving on to something else. And, or it takes a global pandemic like COVID. And that that definitely caused one too.

Philippe Bishop [00:38:08]:

Yeah. But, yeah, it was just lots of, like, going in and talking to people and just going listening to them and talking, what are you tasting? Okay. I I understand that. And it’s like, no. It doesn’t have Brett in it. That’s you might get that as you know, from this type of sure. And, you know, just kind of listening to people and, just going, yeah, you might pick up some cheese in there. That that’s the, you know, quintessential kind of bittersweet character is it’s like a a blue cheeseness, I guess.

Philippe Bishop [00:38:47]:

You could definitely pick that up. And, yeah, just, like, educating them and going, that’s correct. That’s what you want. It’s not it doesn’t have to be just the the latest trendy flavor. These are all flavors coming directly from an apple. And it’s like, here, why don’t you try it with with this chunk of cheese or stuff like that where it’s like, just try it with a little piece of of charcuterie or something like that, and it really opens up their eyes or especially people in, like, bartenders are will try this stuff and just be it kind of blows their mind or really opens their mind. A lot of times you see them their mind start clicking when they’re like, oh, is it be, like, coming up with cocktails or something in their mind? They’re like, oh, what if it goes like you pick up a little bit of botanical note off of this cider and, like, oh, well, what if I blend it with this? And, yeah, I think that’s I don’t know if that really answered your question, but

Scott Cowan [00:40:06]:

Well, it it it’s it’s it’s, what little I know is that cider makers like like your you guys versus other cider makers. Just, you know Yeah. Smaller, single variety, approaching it differently, and versus maybe a more mass market approach? Okay. Both both are fine. Both I think both have their place. I I I don’t have that educated of a palate, but I’ll equate cider to, like, coffee. Mhmm. That really large coffee company in Seattle provided a great exposure for the for coffee to the marketplace, educated the public about coffee, and then all these small roasters went from there and did did their thing with it that you can’t necessarily do in mass production.

Phillippe Bishop [00:41:25]:

And you wouldn’t buy a $5 cup of coffee at your local Port Townsend coffee shop if it weren’t for that large Seattle coffee company training you that you you can. You know? And so it it did did a lot of good. So but you those smaller roasteries, and, like, I’m imagining smaller cider makers like yours, you have to educate. You have to share your products. You have to expose it and explain it to the public because if they’re expecting it to taste like Treetop, they’re they’re taken by surprise. And you have to you have to help them understand what they’re tasting and appreciate those those tasting notes. For sure. And which brings me to, you know, your your you have a tasting room.

Philippe Bishop [00:42:13]:

Yeah. Very, very and we have a tasting hallway with big doors.

Scott Cowan [00:42:18]:

Tasting hallway. Well, on your website, it says room. So is this misinformation? Is your website?

Philippe Bishop [00:42:25]:

I intentionally tasting

Scott Cowan [00:42:26]:

the website. A tasting hallway.

Philippe Bishop [00:42:30]:

If it’s windy and cold out, it’s a tasting hallway. If it’s a, if it’s a nice out, we open the doors, then it’s an outdoor bar, outdoor tasting room.

Scott Cowan [00:42:40]:

So is that for the fifteen minutes that you have sun on July 15 that you open the doors? They’re

Philippe Bishop [00:42:46]:

very squeaky when we get that fifteen minutes.

Scott Cowan [00:42:49]:

Oh my god.

Philippe Bishop [00:42:52]:

Yeah. So it’s open on the weekends, or it’s open on Saturdays, I should say, from twelve to five. We just opened it up again for the the year, kind of March through November ish.

Scott Cowan [00:43:09]:

Mhmm.

Philippe Bishop [00:43:13]:

And, yeah, very laid back, kind of grab a glass and just go sit at the picnic tables in the yard. It’s adjacent to my folks’ place. So it’s they’re just kind of they’re like, I guess I’ll close the curtain today, kind of.

Scott Cowan [00:43:35]:

Oh, okay. Alright. Is it Saturday again? Oh my gosh.

Philippe Bishop [00:43:46]:

But, yeah, that’s How it we’re

Scott Cowan [00:43:50]:

How is the public how is the public when they come to the tasting room? What what’s the what’s the sort of experience that you’ve you’ve had there when somebody pulls up?

Philippe Bishop [00:44:03]:

Everybody’s great. I mean, for the most part, people are just looking to that we’re not open very often. So they’re excited to make it when we’re open.

Scott Cowan [00:44:14]:

Mhmm.

Philippe Bishop [00:44:14]:

Kind of that. And then, you know, you you drive in our driveway, and it’s our cider house is

Scott Cowan [00:44:23]:

a

Philippe Bishop [00:44:23]:

big, large structure, all made of wood, really nicely laid out, and it’s like like, my folks’ place is a log cabin. So you’re driving in, you see the orchard to one side, you see this log cabin here, and and this big wooden production facility, and the the the tasting room doors swung wide open. And

Scott Cowan [00:44:45]:

for that fifteen minutes?

Philippe Bishop [00:44:46]:

Yeah. Well yeah. And or it’s raining, and they just have to run-in. And, so I think it it draws in that kind of, like, oh, this is very serene.

Scott Cowan [00:45:00]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:45:01]:

And it’s rarely ever, like, super crowded, so it’s very peaceful. More times than not, there’s, like, a deer walking through the the front yard and trying to steal your crackers or something. I mean, we get bobcats. We get owls, eagles, tons of ducks. It we’re we’re, jeez. What is it called? Yeah. It’s just the it kind of a nature preserve.

Scott Cowan [00:45:34]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:45:36]:

So, unfortunately, it’s not super dog friendly, but, you know, we’ll just ask people to kinda keep the pups in the car. But, yeah, it’s very, very serene. I think that’s the best descriptor that I can have of of our place.

Scott Cowan [00:45:56]:

Okay. And how long has the tasting room been? Oh, I mean, when did you guys start the tasting room?

Philippe Bishop [00:46:02]:

Where I’m going with this line

Scott Cowan [00:46:04]:

of questioning is how did you start selling your product at retail? What was the initial end?

Philippe Bishop [00:46:13]:

Our tasting room, I think I think it was maybe 2,009 ish.

Scott Cowan [00:46:18]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:46:19]:

And we at that same time, we were, like, trying to do, farmers markets and trying we were just, like, spitballing, just throwing everything out there and seeing what kinda stuck. Because by that time, there was, like, I wanna say maybe a dozen cideries that had started up in Washington, and we were all kind of getting together and, like, you know, trying to figure out how to how to grow this industry. And it was all very, communal feeling. And so we were all just kind of spitballing and working off of each other. The, like, Whole Foods was very responsive and brought in a whole bunch of local ciders. And a lot of the local kind of beer bottle shops brought in a bunch and that was kind of like the beginning of it. And then you had after that, then you saw the explosion in more of a national presence, and then, like, Angry Orchard came on and had their massive sales teams go out and pick up all of these, tap spots pretty much. Like

Scott Cowan [00:47:41]:

Mhmm.

Philippe Bishop [00:47:42]:

Bumping beer handles to put on more cider lines. And that’s what really, like, kind of saw a big pivot in the market. And it was like it was amazing. Like, that’s kind of pushed it to that next level where we were all just like, what are we doing? And we need to get some shelf spots and, you know, chasing these this minuscule amount of space that we’re all given. And then having a behemoth come in and just, like, force every bar from a dive to, like, high quality eating establishment. Now everybody is familiar with cider, and we’ve all now kind of bumped Angry Orchard back off, and it’s all shifting a lot more towards, like, local producers, at least in Washington is what I’m seeing.

Scott Cowan [00:48:42]:

Mhmm.

Philippe Bishop [00:48:43]:

And we’re really lucky, especially in Washington, to have most places are have adapted to up to, like, two or three of their draft lines to cider. And they’ll have, like, a high end cider line like us where our kegs are pretty expensive, to a, more of a a pint style cider and, lots of flavors, adjuncts, and just more of the modern cider take. So it has that balance of, like, helping the customer understand, oh, yeah. There’s kind of two different worlds and, you know, try them both. And so yeah. It’s I think I went off on a different tangent there. I can’t remember what you’re saying.

Scott Cowan [00:49:28]:

You you you you you did and you didn’t. See, I my my question wasn’t very well thought out. First off, I was asking when the when the tasting room was opened, but I also wanted to talk about how you guys brought the cider to market. So you started, as what I’m hearing from a lot of people, is farmers markets. Yeah. And then small distribution. Yeah.

Philippe Bishop [00:49:48]:

Definitely tried that.

Scott Cowan [00:49:49]:

Yeah. Do you do you know the do you know the family that runs, Union Hills Cider in East Wenatchee?

Philippe Bishop [00:49:56]:

We’ve we’ve met a couple times, but not,

Scott Cowan [00:49:59]:

Really nice people. And I was talking to, Andrew, and he’s a he’s a he he’s got his pilot’s license. Okay? And so he we were talking, and he said, yeah. It flew over from Wenatchee to Cle Elum to deliver cider to a a local bar in in Cle Elum. I said, well, that’s not really exactly, you know, you know, economically viable, but it sure sounds like fun. And he’s like, yeah. You know? It was but see, that’s how you know? They’re they’re they’re solving the distribution the way they’re solving it. I mean, you know, they’re they’re they’ve I won’t say flying because that sounds like they do it more often, but they have flown cider tonight flying.

Philippe Bishop [00:50:38]:

You know, they delivered it by

Scott Cowan [00:50:40]:

air. So,

Philippe Bishop [00:50:42]:

It it’s definitely yeah. Especially when you’re small, it’s like every account that you work with is you view it as something special. So there’s been times where I’m like you know? Because most all of our draft is stored out in Port Townsend. So I’m, like, scheduling trips, going out there, and then driving back and then delivering on this side of the on in Seattle. And it’s like, go out there, pick up what I thought was everything, driving back, get on the ferry, come back. And I’m like, I forgot that order. Turn around, get back on the ferry, drive back out, do that trip over and again. And it’s just like, I can’t I can’t you know, I don’t wanna mess these people up because I’m not getting their their order because they can just as easily go to some distributor.

Philippe Bishop [00:51:36]:

And because we’re self distributed, so it’s just like yeah. They can just easily, you know, call up one of their reps who will have it there in no time, but they have chosen to go with self distribution, which is always a risk. And

Scott Cowan [00:51:51]:

yeah. Okay. So you’re you physically are based in the Seattle area? Yeah. Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:51:58]:

That’s where I live and then back So one of the

Scott Cowan [00:52:00]:

things that was confusing on the website was you guys were doing deliveries in Seattle, and I’m like

Philippe Bishop [00:52:05]:

Oh, yeah. That’s me. So I I’m I’m out on the Peninsula once a week. And

Scott Cowan [00:52:10]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:52:13]:

And then, yeah, I’m out on the road kind of delivering, couple times a week. So

Scott Cowan [00:52:21]:

At the time that we’re recording this in late April of twenty twenty two, where are some places that your sighters are available to the public in in Washington?

Philippe Bishop [00:52:35]:

Not many. Let’s see. You down in Tacoma, you’ll get, like, Tacoma Boys, Peaks And Pints, and, like, Incline Sutter House, kind of working our way up. You get, like, Slow Boat Tavern over in Hillman City. You get, like, some jeez. In West Seattle, you get, like, Best of Hands Brewing. You get a beverage place pub, Good Society Brewing, and then Capitol Hill, you get, like, Capitol Cider. And, Les Chey, you get, like, Les Chey Market.

Philippe Bishop [00:53:24]:

And now I’m thinking on the East Side, you get, like, Redmond Whole Foods and, Kirkland Whole Foods, Whole Foods Roosevelt. Yeah. I’m just kinda bouncing around here.

Scott Cowan [00:53:39]:

Right.

Philippe Bishop [00:53:40]:

Right. Do

Scott Cowan [00:53:41]:

you do you do anything East Of The Cascades?

Philippe Bishop [00:53:43]:

No. We don’t. Not right now. I do

Scott Cowan [00:53:46]:

k.

Philippe Bishop [00:53:46]:

I do mainly Bellingham to Tacoma is Okay. Just because everything it’s that that shift. It’s that thing that I brought up earlier where it’s every couple years, a buyer will move on. And for a company like us, where we’re at that upper end of the spectrum

Scott Cowan [00:54:10]:

Mhmm.

Philippe Bishop [00:54:10]:

A new buyer coming on, unless they have a relationship with either me or our brand personally, they will most likely ax, the highest costing thing to make it it’s like, oh, yeah. We’ve got rid of the the high cost stuff, so we’re gonna

Scott Cowan [00:54:30]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [00:54:30]:

Definitely seen that with some grocery stores too where it’s like, oh, new buyers are, oh, we gotta make room for more seltzer, so we’re gonna axe the high end stuff. And it’s like, oh, great.

Scott Cowan [00:54:43]:

Well, now now when we talked on the phone before before we sat down to record this, I’m wondering if you couldn’t maybe swap out your hot piss and vinegar for sorry. We we gotta talk about that. That was I’m just wondering, you know, if if they wanna cut the high cost, can you can you can you sell that to them?

Philippe Bishop [00:55:10]:

That was all one of us.

Scott Cowan [00:55:11]:

I don’t think Okay. So so all kidding aside yes. Let’s let’s please recap that story for me and for the audience this time because that was that was really funny, and

Philippe Bishop [00:55:28]:

I know

Scott Cowan [00:55:28]:

we’ll enjoy this.

Philippe Bishop [00:55:29]:

Oh, absolutely. So being in Port Townsend, we had the opportunity to take part in, possibly one of the best tasting experiences anybody could have in the brewing world. It’s called Strange Brew Fest out in Port Townsend, kinda early February every year, pre pre COVID. And it’s it’s a wild ride. Like, anything anything goes here. Don’t expect your normal IPAs. Don’t expect your your, you know, just a barrel aged stout. Don’t don’t expect expect the unexpected.

Philippe Bishop [00:56:17]:

I think that’s what the Strange Brew Fest is is all about, and it’s just all about, like, community

Scott Cowan [00:56:24]:

Mhmm.

Philippe Bishop [00:56:24]:

And just growing that that beer community. Years ago, I can’t even remember what year it was. Yeah. We were just trying to come up with some fun things, and we’re we had we were making vinegar at the time, and, we’re like, oh, well, we can do this. What about doing, like, a a, like, a spicy shrub thing and and serving it warm? And we could we could call it hot piss and vinegar. And, that’s what we did. We brought a crock pocket crock brought, A

Scott Cowan [00:57:06]:

crock pot.

Philippe Bishop [00:57:07]:

Crock pot. And see, I can I can say, but I can’t say crock pot?

Scott Cowan [00:57:12]:

I can’t say crock pot.

Philippe Bishop [00:57:17]:

And so we’re just like, oh, well, yeah, let’s let’s do the hot piss and vinegar, and we can do I think we called it what did we call it? Isis at the time? I I probably wasn’t the best name, but it it was like, is it cider? And it was a whole bunch. It was a cider that tasted like hot tamales. And, I mean, it was weird. It tasted exactly like hot tamales. Super strange. And so we’re, like, serving these two ciders side by side. And, yeah, definitely got some really weird responses from the hot piss and vinegar. But nobody spit it in your face.

Philippe Bishop [00:58:01]:

It’s true. But, I didn’t serve for the whole night. So maybe. Okay. Maybe. And, hot tamales did extremely well. I mean, the the lines for the these beverages were insane, and I ended up going home a little early. Like, I think it was, like, eleven or something like that.

Philippe Bishop [00:58:28]:

I think it pouring went on to one I can’t remember. Again, years ago. Right. Brain fog. And, so the the folks that were pouring for us call us at really early in the morning, and they’re like, hey. We just got, like, second or third place people’s choice, and it was all about how many tickets we had brought in. And to my knowledge, we’re still the only non beer person that has ever brought home the medal from Strange Brew Fest. And it was from that year of hot piss and vinegar and hot tamales.

Philippe Bishop [00:59:10]:

So I guess there was something about it about those those two then.

Scott Cowan [00:59:18]:

So needless to say, I don’t see those on your shopping cart on your website. I just I’m not seeing those available.

Philippe Bishop [00:59:23]:

Very, very special one off relay releases that I have, intentionally left off our website. Alright.

Scott Cowan [00:59:33]:

Well, let’s let’s talk about I’m gonna okay. This is this is gonna be a tough question. And there’s no wrong answer, by the way.

Philippe Bishop [00:59:41]:

Forty two. No? Done.

Scott Cowan [00:59:45]:

Drop the mic. We’re done. What’s your personal favorite of yours of your of Alpen Firesider?

Philippe Bishop [00:59:55]:

Depends on what I’m doing. Okay. What I’m eating. Okay. Jeez. So, Easter, I made, like, a small ham for my family and I just, you know, something fun. But afterwards, of course, there’s leftover ham made like a ham sandwich and had our our davenette with that ham sandwich. And it was fantastic.

Philippe Bishop [01:00:25]:

Okay. You know, one of those kind of things where it’s just like, it’s simple food goes really well with these kind of rustic ciders. And, but if I’m just, like, cracking a bottle? It’s most likely our pirate’s flank. Okay. It’s kind of my go to. It’s our our flagship cider. Mhmm. And, yeah, it’s just super dry.

Philippe Bishop [01:00:53]:

It yet still, like, fruity and has great, like, leather qualities to it. It’s got a touch of salinity that being where we are, like, we are we’re, I wanna say, 250 feet above sea level and, pretty much right on the bluff of overlooking Discovery Bay. So we have a lot of that kind of fog rolling in, maritime influence. It’s kind of permeated the soil. It shows up like that. That saltiness shows up in our ciders, and it’s really fun to to taste. And so, yeah, I think those I mean, it really just depends on what I’m doing.

Scott Cowan [01:01:41]:

Okay. What’s another good food pairing? What what else when we talk about, you know, cider and pairing it with food so let’s say you let’s say I invite myself over, and you say, alright. I’m gonna sit down with Scott. Since he invited himself over, I’m gonna I’m gonna show him what’s what. What would you pair with, say, your Northern

Philippe Bishop [01:02:07]:

Spy? Northern Spy. That one’s very it’s mineral driven. I’m I’m trying to think what

Scott Cowan [01:02:19]:

We already got debonate with the ham sandwich.

Philippe Bishop [01:02:21]:

Yeah. Sounds sounds just fine to me.

Scott Cowan [01:02:26]:

Yeah.

Philippe Bishop [01:02:29]:

I’m just trying to remember what I had.

Scott Cowan [01:02:36]:

Well, let’s let let me let me let me approach it a different way. I’m gonna throw out some food choices. You you give me a pairing. You

Philippe Bishop [01:02:45]:

know, so so okay. Northern spy.

Scott Cowan [01:02:49]:

Mhmm.

Philippe Bishop [01:02:51]:

I was thinking, like, Lay’s potato chips, maybe some mushrooms, and sesame noodles.

Scott Cowan [01:02:59]:

Interesting.

Philippe Bishop [01:03:01]:

Okay. All things that I think would go well with it’s a very light and crisp cider. You don’t want anything overpowering it. I think that the saltiness of the leis, the earthiness of the the mushrooms, and just that kinda umami flavor of the the noodles, all would be very complimentary to the the Northern Spy. I think that’s

Scott Cowan [01:03:28]:

What do you have that would hold up, say, against a steak? Or not against. That’s you know, it’s not but what would what would be a good, you know?

Philippe Bishop [01:03:39]:

I would do something a little more bold. I Pirate Spike might actually hold up to that, but I would maybe lean more towards, our our ember, which is a lot more tannic driven. Yeah. Or maybe yeah. That’s what I’ll do. Probably ember.

Scott Cowan [01:04:02]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [01:04:03]:

Just because the the tannins in it. Yeah. Maybe our our centers, which is our our method champenoise.

Scott Cowan [01:04:13]:

Mhmm.

Philippe Bishop [01:04:16]:

But there would be different on different aspects of, like, that that has, like, really nice crisp acidity to it, great bubbles. That would definitely cut through the fattiness of the steak. Yeah.

Scott Cowan [01:04:32]:

One thing on your on your cart that just seems a little out of place to me is this Calypso barrel aged fruit cider. Just seems a little just seems a little

Philippe Bishop [01:04:45]:

why? Yeah. It was definitely so in my interpretation of cider, strictly my own interpretation, is cider is made from apples harvested at their peak ripeness, pressed and fermented, and then let left to mature throughout the year with no Mhmm. Nothing else added to it. I mean, might add some fermentation aids, which you could you know, just a very I think apples have so much to give that we don’t need to be adding a lot to it to make a very special beverage. And same with, like, pears. Pears, like, are kind of the same in the same boat. In the modern cider world, it is very common to use kind of cheap very cheap, just commodity, you know, overgrown apples, some might say or I would say. And add whether they be local ingredients or, like, you know, or just fruit concentrate, and to make something, fruity and almost mask the the the apple character.

Scott Cowan [01:06:13]:

Alright. But

Philippe Bishop [01:06:15]:

that that’s definitely more of a modern take of of cider. I mean, it’s been done forever, but it’s there’s been no industry that is based off of an adjunct that is added to a base product like wine. Sure. They’ve always had wine coolers. They’ve always been there one way or the other. Like fruit wine has always been there, but it wasn’t what the the perception of wine was built off of. I mean, beer, it always had its kind of weird adjunct brews, but it was always a a lager and an ale as long as they were well made. That’s what the industry is built off of.

Philippe Bishop [01:06:59]:

I mean, like whiskey. The industry wasn’t built off of a peanut butter whiskey. It was it was built off of just a really nicely distilled and aged product. And so

Scott Cowan [01:07:15]:

Amy, are you telling me that, like, candy cotton candy vodka is not

Philippe Bishop [01:07:21]:

No. That’s that’s vodka. That might have been what there was.

Scott Cowan [01:07:29]:

Oh, okay. Sorry. I just derailed you there.

Philippe Bishop [01:07:37]:

Yeah. In my interpretation, I think to build an industry, you start with the most basic ingredients. And

Scott Cowan [01:07:45]:

Mhmm.

Philippe Bishop [01:07:46]:

So that’s been our interpretation of of cider making is like, hey, if people really wanna drink and enjoy cider, they should drink and enjoy the the base product of of cider, and that is the apples. Not

Scott Cowan [01:08:01]:

Mhmm.

Philippe Bishop [01:08:02]:

Not hibiscus, habanero, huckleberry. You know? That that’s that’s a cocktail. That’s not necessarily what cider is in my eyes. And but it is what’s driving our current market.

Scott Cowan [01:08:23]:

It

Philippe Bishop [01:08:23]:

is hands down, it’s what’s selling. It’s, like, majority of the volume is that kind of innovative. I’m gonna put big big quotations, around that word innovative, and it’s what’s pushing the market. And we’re like, well, we have to do something to stay relevant. And, well, I really like blackberries. Still does. I mean, sure. And I was like, well, what is so we were trying to think of something that that would be kind of hand in hand, a shadow of Pirate’s Mike and being we were trying to think of another one to be ocean themed in our labeling.

Philippe Bishop [01:09:14]:

Mhmm. And we’re like, well, you can do something like Calypso came up. And it’s like, yeah, that works with the name. So we are thinking blackberries because being in the Northwest, they’re easy to get. And, we typically use, like, Pippins, like Newtown Pippins in them, and that’s very commonly grown. Nice heirloom apple. And we’re like, well, it’d be fun to do something with barrels and just see how it goes. And Mhmm.

Philippe Bishop [01:09:54]:

I just happened to run into, the folks from Bull Run Distilling down in Portland as we were kind of coming up with this this cider. And they were just releasing their barrel aged, rum at the time. And it was just, like, kind of serendipity. Talked to them. They were like, yeah. We don’t really deal with the home brewers. And I was like, no. No.

Philippe Bishop [01:10:19]:

No. Here’s my card. I’m I’m with the cider. And they’re like, oh, yeah. Come on down. We’ll we’ll hook you up with some barrels. And, so we just kind of did that. And it’s it’s it’s definitely one of our it’s within our top three selling ciders.

Philippe Bishop [01:10:39]:

Like Yeah. It’s just one what is it? I think Cider Craft. It just won like a double gold or something. Last year it was featured for four months, three months at Canlis Restaurant. And so it it’s I don’t know. It’s one of those I I love to hate it.

Scott Cowan [01:11:10]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [01:11:10]:

But I

Scott Cowan [01:11:11]:

That’s fair.

Philippe Bishop [01:11:12]:

I deliver more of that cider than I do. I mean, it’s pretty close with, like, Pirates’ Mike. They they’re both in 500 mil, and they they move pretty similarly. Okay. But it’s amazing how well it moves. And I do a lot of work promoting Barrett’s Blank, and I do no work promoting that other cider. Gotcha. So

Scott Cowan [01:11:36]:

Let me let’s let’s let me let’s shift some gears here real quick. So when you’re not delivering or forgetting and having to go back

Philippe Bishop [01:11:46]:

yeah.

Scott Cowan [01:11:47]:

And when you’re when you’re, you know, what do you drink when you’re not drinking cider?

Philippe Bishop [01:11:57]:

Usually beer. Like, Okay. It depends, again, what I’m doing. I typically have, like, a bilsner, some kind of draft bilsner in my fridge, or, like, a a farmhouse some kind of farmhouse seven fifty in my fridge. There are the two kind of common.

Scott Cowan [01:12:25]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [01:12:27]:

Yeah. IPAs if I’m out working in my shop. Yeah. I I don’t know. I I tend to drink drink beer. I also really enjoy wine. Bourbon and scotch are big fans. I’ve recently we did a small barrel project with a big gin distilling, here in

Scott Cowan [01:12:54]:

Mhmm.

Philippe Bishop [01:12:55]:

And kind of really have been really enjoying their gin recently, especially their, their pita gin is is out of this world good. Okay. It’s one of my favorite drinks just to kind of evening touch of ice in it and just a shot of, that specific gin is is a go to.

Scott Cowan [01:13:27]:

Now during our conversation today, I keep seeing you drink from this gallon sized container of coffee. Kidding. It’s not it’s not a gallon.

Philippe Bishop [01:13:40]:

Yeah. You know, coffee. I typically there’s a a roaster called seven is it seven roasting? Seven I can’t remember exactly.

Scott Cowan [01:13:57]:

Where are they,

Philippe Bishop [01:13:58]:

where are they based off? I think they’re in West Seattle, actually.

Scott Cowan [01:14:01]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [01:14:03]:

But I I initially had their stuff up on Phinney Ridge when they were up there. And that’s just my

Scott Cowan [01:14:09]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [01:14:09]:

The the beans that I it’s my go to kind of,

Scott Cowan [01:14:13]:

K.

Philippe Bishop [01:14:14]:

I used to

Scott Cowan [01:14:15]:

do Always looking for, you know, good good coffee.

Philippe Bishop [01:14:18]:

Yeah. For sure. I did a bunch of I used to do a a bunch of work with a a group called the Surfrider Foundation, and

Scott Cowan [01:14:27]:

Mhmm.

Philippe Bishop [01:14:27]:

We had a bunch of meetings. Like, they offered up their space to us to to hold our our meetings. And so I kind of that’s where I was introduced to them. And yeah. Right.

Scott Cowan [01:14:41]:

That’s your

Philippe Bishop [01:14:43]:

And, if I’m just okay. So yeah, that’s their their seven coffee roasters is kind of my my go to for my seven coffees? My beans when I’m at home. If I’m going out and just grabbing a cup on the road, I usually swing by, like, Cafe Ladro or Lighthouse, depending on where I am.

Scott Cowan [01:15:06]:

Solid.

Philippe Bishop [01:15:07]:

And Solid. Yeah. Okay. Or 07:11. Drinking.

Scott Cowan [01:15:16]:

07:11? Well, you got it’s you’re you’re keeping with a theme. 7711. Okay. Well, I can

Philippe Bishop [01:15:23]:

I can

Scott Cowan [01:15:23]:

respect that, you know? And and especially if you tell me you’re putting in the, you know, three of those packets of, you know, artificial creamer to to to add some character.

Philippe Bishop [01:15:32]:

It’s like that that, you know, the old graveyard when you go to, like, a fountain sodas. You you just get all the creamers and just dump them all in. Like, one of each flavor, you just top it off. It’s like, great. God.

Scott Cowan [01:15:43]:

Oh, god.

Philippe Bishop [01:15:45]:

It’s been a bit of

Scott Cowan [01:15:46]:

a disgusting thing I’ve that may be the most disgusting thing I’ve heard on this show so far. Oh my god. That’s awful. And I I tip my cap. So when you’re not doing cider, what what do you like to do for fun? What do you and the family like to do for fun and excitement? Oh, boy.

Philippe Bishop [01:16:09]:

I I’ve so I’ve got a nine year old and a three year old. And k. They just they they keep us running. My my degree is in photography. Like, specialize in, like, nature, landscape photography. I really enjoy doing that. Haven’t had a lot of time to do it recently. I dabble in, like, social, graphic design and it being more of a hobby right now.

Philippe Bishop [01:16:42]:

I kinda still enjoy doing that. Mhmm. Jeez. Used to

Scott Cowan [01:16:51]:

Well, what are what are the three and nine year old in what are the three year old and the nine year old into? What are what’s fun for them?

Philippe Bishop [01:16:57]:

Actually, I’m just getting all of our bikes tuned up for the summer.

Scott Cowan [01:17:02]:

Okay.

Philippe Bishop [01:17:03]:

Just, yeah. Got my old bike all tuned up. Got my my daughter is, like, in between bikes, so I am trying to move her up into a bigger bike and move my son to her old bike. And it’s like they’re both at that stage where their feet could barely touch the larger pedals.

Scott Cowan [01:17:21]:

So it’s

Philippe Bishop [01:17:22]:

like Right. Alright. Perfect timing. Gotcha. But looking forward to doing some some bike rides this summer.

Scott Cowan [01:17:29]:

Alright.

Philippe Bishop [01:17:29]:

And, yeah. That’s I You’re still busy? Enjoy being out in the woods away from people. So the more time I can do that, the better. Okay. Yeah. But usually, my my getting away from people is unfortunately in the van on the road. So surrounded by people in our own little boxes.

Scott Cowan [01:17:58]:

Right. Right.

Philippe Bishop [01:18:01]:

Polluting as much air as we can. Right?

Scott Cowan [01:18:03]:

There you go. So what didn’t I ask you that I should have?

Philippe Bishop [01:18:11]:

Let’s see. So, yeah, going back to organics a little bit. We got our first certification in 02/2005. We were the first we were the second certified organic cider in the nation. First west of the Rockies. Still one of only a handful that are out there. And that kind of comes down to it’s not just, you know, certified organic apples. It’s also we have to have everything processed organically, a lack of fermentation aids, you know, in our our blends.

Philippe Bishop [01:18:54]:

You know, it’s a multilayered kind of thing. It’s definitely been a a feather in our cap, but also a big hindrance, to our growth, I think. It’s a lot of lot of extra work that yeah. I don’t know. Yeah. Let’s see. I think that’s pretty close to about it. It’s been interesting just seeing how the industry has grown.

Philippe Bishop [01:19:36]:

I think on our phone call, I had mentioned that it was, like, a 15 cideries. I revisited that number, and it’s, I on that number, I had included a bunch of wineries and breweries that I knew were making cider as well. So, if I reduce it down to, like, 90, that’s it looks like we’re about 90 cider producers in Washington. Wow. Which is pretty huge. I mean, for the industry still being pretty young and, Yeah. Not we’re not talked about a whole lot, which is kind of weird. Like, in the, you know, the food and wine and the the all that kind of magazines, they seem to forget about our side of the industry and prefer to talk about seltzers for some reason.

Scott Cowan [01:20:35]:

Yeah. Where can people find where can people find out more about Alpenfire on online?

Philippe Bishop [01:20:44]:

Best let’s see. Our website, alpinefirecider.com is k. I try to keep it updated as much as possible. Next up would be probably our Instagram, which is, again, just search Alpenfire Cider. We’re on Facebook. We’re on Twitter, but they aren’t updated super regularly. It’s kinda just my my folks and I, and neither of us really like doing it. We occasionally, toss on some stories or some pictures, but it’s like, you know, when when you’re working, you just kind of are focused on working instead of going, oh, I should take a picture of this.

Philippe Bishop [01:21:26]:

And then Right.

Scott Cowan [01:21:30]:

Yeah. How I mean, that’s that’s isn’t that the, the challenge of of all of all small businesses is, oh, I didn’t realize I needed to keep my entire career Instagram ready Yeah. And and constantly be, you know, photo documenting the me living my best life.

Philippe Bishop [01:21:50]:

Yeah. I didn’t realize people wanted to know that.

Scott Cowan [01:21:54]:

I figure. So

Philippe Bishop [01:21:55]:

But I think I think, our big news is we are we are planning a a tasting room in Seattle and Oh. Just something small and just kind of easy to manage and just give people a little bit easier chance to find us.

Scott Cowan [01:22:18]:

Not trying to put you on the spot, but when when is that how far out in the horizon is that?

Philippe Bishop [01:22:25]:

Probably early next year is what Okay. I mean, I was gonna try to get it done by this year, but, with what I’ve heard about how, you know, getting everything cleared with this the city and, you know, building anything right now. A build out would probably set me back quite a bit. So I’m guessing early next year is what I’m what I’m Okay. You know, fingers crossed, shooting for. Probably South End, West Seattle, So to, Hillman City, maybe Burien, somewhere Mhmm. Columbia City, something like that. And, yeah, good neighborhood feel.

Philippe Bishop [01:23:09]:

Gotcha. Okay.

Scott Cowan [01:23:12]:

Yeah. That’s Very good. Well, I will wrap this up by saying thank you for taking the time to sit with me today and and talk about Alpenfire and hot piss and vinegar. I just never thought I would talk about that or mixing all the creamers together. I mean, we’ve really covered the gamut of, of topics here today.

Philippe Bishop [01:23:33]:

Hey. It’s innovative.

Scott Cowan [01:23:36]:

Innovative. I,

Philippe Bishop [01:23:41]:

yeah, innovative.

Scott Cowan [01:23:45]:

But, again, thank you for taking the time, and, I’m looking forward to keeping an eye on you guys and seeing what’s, you know, I’m looking forward to seeing this tasting room Yeah. Get launched. Oh. You know?

Philippe Bishop [01:23:58]:

Let me know when you when you’re on this side of the the mountains, and we’ll, get you some cider.

Scott Cowan [01:24:04]:

I will take you up on that.

Philippe Bishop [01:24:06]:

So alright.

Scott Cowan [01:24:07]:

Thank you so much.

Philippe Bishop [01:24:08]:

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Scott Cowan [01:24:21]:

Join us next time for another episode of the exploring Washington state podcast.

Thank you for taking the time to learn more about Washington State, Phillippe Bishop, and Alpenfire Cider. Please share your comments in the comment section below.